nature

Fall in South Carolina

November 10, 2011 by Lesley Tellez

Crayton and I spent the past few days in Anderson, South Carolina, visiting his grandparents. The fall leaves are stunning here: fiery burgundies and golds and oranges, set against a deep blue sky. One morning Crayton’s grandma and I just sat and looked at them from her screened-in porch.

Here are a few more shots of them.

And here is my obligatory Clemson University mention, because I am an Anderson, South Carolinian by marriage (go Tigers!):

Clemson isn't too far from Anderson, SC, and everyone is a fan. This is a gift for our 5-month-old second cousin.

We’re in Atlanta now and then we move on to Huntsville. We get home Sunday and then on Tuesday I’m off again, this time to Brazil for a week. We’ll spend four days in Sao Paulo and 3 days in Rio.

Hope your November is treating you well so far!

Mezcal and the milpa in the state of México

October 18, 2011 by Lesley Tellez

One of the things I love about running Eat Mexico is that I get to meet people who are passionate about Mexican food and Mexican traditions. This weekend, two of those people — Gustavo and his girlfriend Karina, who help me with my mezcal tour — offered to take me to the state of Mexico, one of the states that borders the Distrito Federal, so I can see how mezcal is made up-close.

Only seven states have been certified by the Mexican government to make mezcal: Oaxaca, Guerrero, Zacatecas, Tamaulipas, San Luis Potosí, Guanajuato and Durango. But mezcal is actually produced in several more places, including the state of Mexico and Puebla. By law, these states aren’t allowed to put the name “mezcal” on their liquor, even though they’ve been making mezcal for generations.

Our destination was Zumpahuacán, a small municipality about two hours west of Mexico City. From the Colonia Roma, we headed west toward Santa Fe and then up over the hills past La Marquesa, the forest of pine and fir trees. (Yep, there’s a forest right outside Mexico City. I really need to get out and see it more often.)

We drove past Toluca and through Tenancingo, a town known for its rebozos and obispo tacos. We zig-zagged for several miles on a windy road that cut through the hills, and then we finally pulled off and parked under a shade tree.

This was our view:

Look, a real squash flower!

The mezcal tour begins

The maestro mezcalero, Sr. José Luis, greeted us in person, wearing slacks, a button-down shirt and leather sandals. He served us mezcal in little clay jarritos, and we sipped and talked on his patio. His dog lay nearby in the sun.

His mezcal-production area lay about a kilometer from his home, down a dirt path. The sun shined high and hard overhead. I regretted not bringing a hat. (Speaking of which, I need to replace my American baseball caps for a straw hat like these guys are wearing.)

The maestro mezcalero, Sr. José Luis, and my friend Gustavo

The view of the countryside in Zumpahuacán, Estado de México

Sr. José Luis makes his mezcal from wild agave. I’d never seen one up close before, and the first plant we saw had a rounded, raised pattern on its leaves. The design reminded me of similar shapes I’d seen on murals at Teotihuacán and the Anthropology Museum. It was kind of an ah-ha moment.

Agave criollo, one of several types (all called criollo, for lack of a scientific categorization) that grow on Sr. José Luis's land.

Another agave criollo

Sr. José Luis, using his machete, shows us how to determine when an agave is mature.

The milpa in Zumpahuacán

We learned about his mezcal distillation process, and we saw the earthen pit where he roasts his piñas. Piña, in this instance, doesn’t mean pineapple. It’s the name for the core of the agave, which is what mezcal is made from. On the way back, we got a bigger treat: Sr. José Luis led us through his milpa, where he grows corn, beans and squash for his family.

The word milpa signifies a small plot of land where things are grown synergistically. The beans use the corn as a natural trellis, snaking around the stalks; the squash naturally harvests just after the corn does. The milpa was the most important farming practice in Mesoamerica for thousands of years.

And there I was, standing in one.

“This is where it all started!” I wanted to tell everyone. Of course, they knew too, and we all stood around sort of dazed.

A variety of white bean, hanging off a cornstalk in the milpa

How amazing is this? The bean stem, trellising around an ear of corn.

Black corn, one of the varieties grown on José Luis's milpa. This one isn't ripe yet.

Wild cempasúchil, the traditional flower of Day of the Dead

A yellow flower -- I forgot the name -- that grows wild in Zumpahuacan. It's gathered and formed into shapes (like crosses or wreaths), which are placed over people's doorways on holidays.

As we were walking back through the flowers and the sunshine, I asked Sr. José Luis what Zumpahuacán means. He said, “Place where the skulls are found.” Turns out the name actually means “place where the skulls of the sacrificed are kept in colorín trees.” Huh.

The day comes to an end

Sr. José Luis plucked off few fresh ears of corn for us to take home and his family roasted a few more for us to munch on. The kernels were nutty and toasty, almost popcorn-tasting.

On the way home, we listened to Tin-Tan and I tried to figure out a way to fit my two bottles of mezcal into my tiny tote bag — a bag already stuffed with sweet bread, tomatillos and manzano chiles from Tenancingo.

I really, really need to get out of the city more often. We’ve got too many amazing things in our backyard.

Ominous clouds in Mexico City

August 22, 2011 by Lesley Tellez

This is the view outside my office window right now. Hope it rains soon — we need it.

Hiking in the Nevado de Toluca

August 11, 2009 by Lesley Tellez

I’m kind of ashamed to admit it, but I’m not a very outdoorsy person. I really want to be. I want to be that woman who camps, and hikes, and owns like, three polar fleece shells, and can find her way around the forest with a compass. The sad reality is that I’m scared of bugs and snakes. And sometimes eating trail mix and beef jerky in front of the TV sounds much better than walking outside for five hours. (I’m wincing as I’m writing this. Oma and Bpa, if you’re reading this, I promise I really do love the land.)

However, on Saturday, our friends Julie and John invited us to go hiking on Sunday at the Nevado de Toluca. It’s a volcano and accompanying crater set up at about 15,000 feet, and visitors can climb into the basin and walk around. I’d seen pictures of the place and it had looked amazing: empty and pristine, with ribbons of snow covering the ground. Two lakes lay inside the basin, too, which just seemed eerie. Lakes on top of a volcano?

So, early Sunday morning, our tote bag packed with extra sweatshirts and our very outdoorsy Sigg bottles, we set out for the Nevado, located about 50 miles west of Mexico City. The weather was a bit overcast. We drove for awhile, and as soon as we got up into the mountains, the car’s temperature reader started dropping. 55 degrees. Then 50. Then 45.

When we finally made it to the parking area at the base of the volcano, we opened the car doors to a stiff, icy wind thick with mist. We scrambled to the trunk to put on more layers. Then we took a picture of our zipped-up selves.

Interestingly, there were a lot of Mexican families there. Some wore light jackets, and had wrapped themselves in blankets. A few people even carried their dogs. I love how Mexicans are always getting out and doing things, weather (or money) be damned.

Off we went on our trek to the rim. Since it’s so high up, there wasn’t much oxygen, and I had to take short steps. I started to feel a little light-headed.

“Does anyone else feel drunk?” I called to my four hiking companions, who were walking way ahead of me. No one said anything.

The view was just breathtaking, though. Clouds hovering over mountains. Floppy tufts of Cousin-It grass lay scattered along the trail. And these weird thistle-like things…

Several minutes of heaving breaths later, we’d finally made it to the rim. Unfortunately, the clouds were so thick, we couldn’t see anything.

But two stray dogs suddenly appeared out of nowhere, begging for some of our string cheese.

We decided to hike down into the basin anyway, on the off chance that maybe some of the clouds would clear. We hiked for about 15 minutes, the only sounds being the soil crunching under our feet, and our own breathing.

We came across a small pond. With the mist curling around the water, and air tightening in our throats, and the strange foilage poking out of the soil, I suddenly felt like I was on the moon. Or at least the next episode of Lord of the Rings. We all just sat around in silence, and stared.

The clouds hadn’t lifted much, so we walked all the way back to the car, dreaming — well, me anyway — of what we would eat for lunch. When we were almost to the car, the sun finally came out, uncovering a panoramic view of the city.

I’m sure we’d go back. The question is how to predict sunny weather, so we can actually see something besides the Cousin-It grass.

Moody, magical Patzcuaro Michoacan

June 29, 2009 by Lesley Tellez

This sounds kinda dorky, but one of my secret pleasures in life is contemplating the clouds. (I’m actually a wee bit of a closet hippie.) When I lived in Boston, I couldn’t get over how fast the clouds moved. They were like trains, pushed this way and that by the wind.

In Patzcuaro during the rainy season — which is now — the clouds are so amazingly beautiful, they’re like people, almost. They’re grayish and menacing, and they hover over the mountains as if to say, “We all know who’s really in charge here.”

In my hierarchy of Patzcuaro beauty, the clouds come first; then the mountains, then the lakes, and then maybe the cornstalks that grow all over the side of the road. And then maybe the amazing loaves of crusty, caramel-brown bread that sit in the bakeries.

(Can you tell she’s in love?)

We jetted off to Patzcuaro just for a night this weekend. It was my second visit there, and thankfully I didn’t have a stomach bacteria this time. Joy and her husband invited us — they’d visited Patzcuaro a few weeks ago, and were going back to buy a copper vase they’d seen in Santa Clara del Cobre, which sells all sorts of great copper handicrafts.

In Patzcuaro, we stayed at the Hotel Ixhi, which was nice even if the staff was a little disorganized. The views there couldn’t be beat:

We wandered around Patzcuaro’s historic Centro for a few hours, and had wine on Ixhi’s porch as the sun went down. On Sunday morning we drove to Santa Clara del Cobre, and I fought the urge to buy a copper sink. Although I really really want one in my house someday.

Sweetbread for sale in Patzcuaro's Plaza Grande

A street in Santa Clara del Cobre

A stall from Patzcuaro's Sunday market

Crayton and I also bought a piece of art from La Mano Grafica, a cool gallery next to the Basilica. It’s a print from Artemio Rodriguez, a Michoacan native who spent some time in L.A. (His exhibition space is in Patzcuaro.) Didn’t realize this until I got home, but he’s the same artist who did the woodcuts for Dagoberto Gilb’s book Woodcuts of Women, which is one of my favorite books ever.

We drove through a horrible rainstorm on the way back, but overall, it was a perfect weekend trip.

Still thinking about those clouds…